The Good Father

He couldn’t fault her for that.

Or for much else, either, truth be told. Through years of nursing her terminally ill daughter, while also bearing her husband’s mood swings, the drinking, the lost income and then the beatings, the woman had endured far more than any human being should ever have to.

If he got frustrated with her silence, that was on him.

Cody started talking about the sandbo

x again, and Ella, who’d only eaten a quarter of her meal, offered to take him outside to play for a few minutes.

The air felt chilled as she left his side, but Brett was glad for her to go. He’d been so busy trying to keep himself immune to her that her presence was interfering with his ability to form a plan.

Chloe put down her fork the second her son was out of earshot. “Did you talk to Jeff about...his issue?” Her long, dark hair fell over her shoulder as she leaned toward him, and she pushed it back.

“I asked him what he thought the issue was.” Brett wasn’t going to lie. But aside from that, he’d do what it took to make this right.

“And? Did he admit to getting angry?”

“He told me that he’s said some things that he regrets. He takes full accountability for coming home tensed up from work and taking it out on you.”

“He said that?” Her eyes opened wide. “Or did you put the words in his mouth?”

“I didn’t know them to put them there. He just told me what happened the night before you left. Alluded to the fact that it wasn’t the first time he’d brought his work home with him in a negative way.”

But who didn’t have a bad mood now and then? When people lived together there were bound to be times when one or the other was irritable. Short-tempered. Angry. None of that added up to abuse. Not even close.

“He told you about me standing in the doorway and him pushing through it?”

“Yes.”

Tears still glistening through the hope he read in her gaze, Chloe sat there watching him. As though she was waiting for something.

It was time for his plan.

And he didn’t have one.

CHAPTER TEN

NEVER IN A million years would Ella have seen herself waving goodbye to Chloe, who was driving off in her car, while she stood in the parking lot of Uncle Bob’s with Brett. But here she was.

Never in a million years would she have expected him to ask her to stay behind for a few minutes, or to offer to take her home afterward. But he had.

The grin on Chloe’s face made it only too obvious that her sister-in-law thought Brett’s interest in Ella was personal.

Ella knew better.

“Take a walk?” He motioned to the sidewalk that bordered the beach, stretching for more than a mile in either direction.

The area wasn’t deserted. The beach, the sidewalk, weren’t teeming with tourists the way they might have been on a hot summer Sunday night, but many locals, dressed in pants and shirts, some with sweaters on instead of swimsuits and shorts, populated the area.

“Sure,” she said, glad that she’d worn flat sandals with her jeans. It wasn’t like old times, she reminded herself. While she and Brett had walked along the beach every single time they’d come to town, they’d never been on this particular stretch of sidewalk together.

And they weren’t holding hands.

“It was a great idea, having Chloe work at the Stand,” he said as they started out, side by side, with enough space between them that there was no chance of brushing hands.

“It’s a two-way street, you know? She helps them, and they help her. I’m hoping that she’ll get help for her situation through the residents as she works side by side with them.”

She had no way of knowing whether or not Brett agreed with her. He didn’t reply. In the old days, the good days, she’d have known exactly what he was thinking. Because he’d have told her. In the latter days of their marriage, the ones during which their relationship had started to fade right before her eyes, he might have nodded.